Tommy Nightmare (Jenny Pox #2) (29 page)

Jenny stopped and looked at the empty pond.
She had died down there, and Seth had pulled her out and brought
her back. Since then, she’d had occasional jumbled memories about
past lives, especially in her dreams. They weren’t like normal
dreams, where she was participating and affecting what happened.
They were more like movies, or reruns.

Seth didn’t seem to be having these dreams,
as far as he could remember.

Jenny felt like she and Seth were growing
more distant from each other, and that worried her.

She walked to the lower patio, built next to
the basement door. It was occupied by a park bench and Dr.
Goodling’s gigantic propane-powered grill. She found the big fake
rock next to the door, with the key tucked inside a hollow
compartment on the bottom.

Jenny held up the key and looked at the
basement door. She didn’t really like the idea of going in through
the basement, which looked to be mostly underground. She still felt
like she was being watched, but there was nobody around, unless
someone was watching her from the windows of the house next door.
Nobody had ever lived there, though.

The basement door unlocked with a rusty
squeak, as if it hadn’t been used in a long time. Jenny pushed the
door inward.

The inside of the basement was a deep gloom.
Jenny found the panel of light switches on the wall and flicked
each one, but none of them seemed to do anything. It seemed like
all the bulbs were burned out, or maybe the fuse.

“Damn it,” Jenny whispered. She would have to
find her way in the dark.

Jenny made her way deeper into the basement,
her eyes slowly adjusting to the gloom. She tripped over something
and sprawled face first, banging her chin on the concrete. She
cried out, then looked back to see what had tripped her.

A pink Barbie roller skate, the right size
for an eight-year-old girl, trundled across the basement and came
to rest against a Christmas tree stand.

Even when dead, Ashleigh was still giving her
problems.

Jenny pushed up to her feet and groped
forward in the dark, sliding her sneakers along the floor so
nothing else could trip her up.

Overhead, she heard footsteps in the house.
That must be Maybelle, she thought.

Jenny found her way to the stairs, which were
made of unstained boards. She crawled up them on hands and knees,
since she could barely see anything more than a few inches ahead of
her.

She pushed open the door at the top of the
steps.

Immediately, a snarling, furry face filled
her range of vision. Maybelle. The Welsh Corgi's mouth opened and
closed, but only a hoarse rasping sound came out.

“Hi, Maybelle.” Jenny stood up quickly, and
the dog backed off a few steps. Maybelle kept up her pathetic
attempts at barking as Jenny stepped into the front hall, closed
the door, and found her way to the kitchen.

“Look, I'm here to feed you. Stop freaking
out,” Jenny said. The dog's debarked voice bothered her more than
actual barking would have.

Jenny opened the pantry and found the
thirty-pound bag of dry dog food, and then she found the dog dishes
in the laundry room. When she reached for the empty food bowl,
Maybelle let out a strangled growl and nipped at Jenny's hand,
puncturing her thin summer glove and drawing blood.

“Bitch!” Jenny yelled, but she already felt
sorry for the dog. The brief contact, and the slight taste of
Jenny's blood, had opened sores along Maybelle's snout. “Aw, crap.
I'm sorry, puppy.”

Maybelle scampered away, trying to whimper,
and hid herself elsewhere in the house.

“Good girl,” Jenny said. “Stay away from
me.”

She dipped the food bowl into the bag and
scooped out a heaping mound so she wouldn't need to come back soon.
Jenny left the door to the pantry open, too, so Maybelle could get
into the big bag if she needed to. Jenny certainly didn't intend to
come back—let Darcy check on the dog Monday, and clean up any dog
poo on the floor. Ashleigh's house creeped Jenny out.

Jenny glanced into the front parlor, where
Maybelle was hiding with her head under a couch, her rump sticking
out. The pristine white carpet was already stained with a couple of
yellow urine splotches and a pile of dog crap.

Something about the house seemed wrong to
Jenny. Everything was put away and cleaned off. There wasn't any
dust anywhere, and she could still see vacuum cleaner tracks in the
carpet.

Presumably, Dr. and Mrs. Goodling had rushed
off to the town square to see about their daughter, who had
supposedly been assaulted by Seth. The house looked neatly squared
away, though, not one thing left out. Maybe Darcy was keeping up
the house, she thought.

Then she remembered one more thing. Last time
she'd been here, Ashleigh's Jeep was parked in the driveway, and
Ashleigh herself was just a little pile of diseased and broken
bones on the front walk.

Today, Ashleigh's Jeep hadn't been there.
Jenny's car was the only one in the driveway.

Jenny decided to check the refrigerator,
because if the house had really been abandoned for two months, the
fridge should be full of mold and rotten food.

She looked inside. Everything seemed new and
fresh—the Piggy Wiggly brand milk didn't expire for another
week.

“Shit,” Jenny whispered as she closed the
refrigerator door. Someone was living here.

She immediately thought of the gray-eyed boy
who'd given her and Seth an evening of intense waking nightmares.
Ashleigh's opposite. What if he'd never left town? What if he was
still here, spying on them? She'd certainly felt like someone was
watching her, ever since she stepped out of her car.

For all she knew, there was a big black
motorcycle in the garage. Maybe the Jeep was in there, too, or
maybe he'd sold it for quick cash.

Maybe she wasn't alone in the house.

In another room, something crashed to the
floor. Maybe the dog had knocked something over. Or maybe not.

Jenny swore again as she ran for the basement
door, instinctively going back the way she’d come. She took them as
fast as she dared in the dark, then ran through the basement and
out the door. She closed it behind her, but she didn't bother
taking time to lock it.

She ran as fast as she could around the
house, picking up speed when she saw her car. Jenny looked around.
She couldn't see anybody, but someone could be watching from the
upper floors of Ashleigh's house, or maybe one of the empty houses
nearby.

She sat down in her car, closed and locked
the door. Her hand shook as she tried to fit the key into the
ignition.

“Calm down,” she whispered to herself. She
inserted the key, cranked the car, and backed out of Ashleigh's
driveway without bothering to look behind her.

As she pulled out, she thought she saw
something move in an upper window of the house next door, the one
that had never been lived in by anybody. But when she turned her
head to look, nobody was there.

Jenny pulled into her dirt driveway, relieved
to see her dad's rusty old Ram still parked there. After her creepy
experience at Ashleigh's, the last thing she wanted was to be
alone.

She checked over the fence first, but he
wasn't working on the air conditioner anymore.

She ran up the front steps to her house and
pulled open the screen door.

“Hey, Dad, I think I'll take one of those
hoop cheese sandwiches now.” She walked into the living room. Her
dad didn't reply.

Jenny checked his room to see if he was
napping, but his door was open and he wasn't there.

“Dad?” She walked back up the hall. “Dad? Are
you here?”

The kitchen table and two chairs were turned
over on their sides. Jenny ran into the kitchen. “Dad?”

Broken dishes and cups littered the floor,
including fragments of the
Happy Days
collector's glasses.
Jenny's dad lay slumped against the kitchen wall, his eyes empty
and staring straight ahead.

“Daddy!” Jenny screamed as she ran to him.
Something was pinned to the front of his shirt, rumpled brown paper
with letters from newspapers and magazines glued to it, like a
ransom note. The letters across the top read:

SETH DIES TONIGHT

Beneath that was a crude marker drawing of an
eye with a gray iris. The note was signed in smaller cutout
letters:

YOU KNOW WHO

Jenny grabbed his shoulder and shook him.
“Dad!”

He took a sharp breath of air, looking at her
briefly—his eyes confused, seeing her and not seeing her at the
same time—and then he rolled onto his hands and knees and crawled
away from her, ignoring the broken glass and porcelain that cut his
hands.

“Dad, stop! You're hurting yourself!”

He mumbled something and crawled faster.

Jenny wondered if he'd been drinking again,
after months of being sober. But this wasn't his usual drunken
behavior, either. This was just plain
weird
, and it scared
her.

“Dad, where are you going?” She followed him
as he crawled down the hall and into his room. He got up on his
knees and peeked out the window, then ducked down as if something
was about to come hurling through the glass.

“She's coming,” he said. “She's
watching.”

“Who?”

“My daughter,” he whispered. “She killed my
wife and she's coming back to kill me. Just a matter of time.”

“Dad, I'm...” Jenny decided not to finish the
thought. If he was afraid of her, maybe it was best not to point
out that she was, in fact, his daughter. “What happened? Was
somebody here?”

“They're coming for me,” he whispered. He
peeked out the window again. “They're coming for all of us.”

“Nobody's coming for us.” Jenny touched his
arm.

“Get back!” He howled and pulled away from
her. He tripped over a pair of his shoes, and his head knocked into
the end table by the bed. The lamp and alarm clock toppled from the
table as it crashed to the floor.

“Dad! Are you okay?”

He pulled his knees to his chest and lay on
the floor in a fetal position, shivering.

“Dad, answer me!”

“They're coming,” he whispered. “They're all
coming now.”

“Where's your cell phone?”

“It's all gone,” he whispered. “All this,
it's all gone, they're taking it all away...”

“Is it in the kitchen? Wait right here,
okay?” Jenny ran to the kitchen and found his phone on the counter,
then ran back to his room. He was shaking, staring through her,
terrified.

She didn't know what was wrong with him, but
Seth could fix it. Jenny dialed Seth's cell.

“Hey, this is Seth, leave a message.” His
voicemail answered immediately, which meant his phone was turned
off. The voicemail beeped.

“Fuck!” Jenny said. “Seth, it's Jenny. This
is my dad's phone. Call back now, okay? It's an emergency.
Seriously. Okay? Please?”

She hung up. Her dad got to his feet and
stumbled out to the hall, still muttering under his breath.

“Dad? Where are you going now?” She followed
him up the hall. His shoulder kept banging against the wall,
knocking down framed photographs, as if he were having trouble
keeping his balance.

“I got to get the gun,” he said. He doubled
back and pushed by her, though she tried to stop him. “Before they
come back.”

“Dad, please, do not do that.” She followed
him back to his room. He knelt by the bed and rooted underneath it,
where he kept his shotgun. “Dad, no!” She dropped down beside him
and pulled back on his arms. “We don't need the gun.”

“You ain't listening to me!” He looked at
her, but he still didn't seem to recognize her. “They’re coming for
all of us.”

“Nobody's coming.” The cell phone in her
pocket was silent as death. Why wouldn't Seth call back? “Come on,
Dad. Maybe you need to go to the hospital.” She hooked a hand under
his arm to help him up.

“No!” he shouted. He crawled away from
her.

“They can help you,” Jenny said.

“They're after me.” He crawled into the
hallway again.

“Nobody's after you.” Jenny followed him,
trying not to cry now. She didn't know what to do, and there was
nobody to help her.

He crawled to a corner of the living and
pulled his knees to his chest, head low.

“Dad, please.” Jenny took his hands. “Just
let me take you to the hospital.”

“You ain't taking me nowhere. You get the
hell out of my house!”

“Dad...” Jenny couldn't help it, she was
really crying now. “Dad, come on. Just get up on your feet.”

“What do you want with me?” he asked.

“I'm just trying to get you help,” she said.
“Come on, stand up.”

He looked at her with deep suspicion, but he
did let her help him stand.

“This way,” Jenny whispered. “It's gonna be
okay.”

She led him toward the front door, and he
leaned heavily on her. She managed to get him out through the
screen door and down the steps. Then she guided him toward the car
and opened the passenger door.

“Oh, hell no!” He shouted. He pulled away
from her and ran into the shed.

“Daddy, stop!” Jenny ran after him.

She found him crouched behind the workbench,
looking around. When he saw her, he ducked his head out of
sight.

“Dad, come on.”

“You're gonna kill me,” he said.

“I am not!” Jenny didn't even try to stop her
tears from pouring out. This whole situation was confusing and
frightening.

“Dad, come on...” Jenny struggled to think of
what to do. Her mother's name popped into her head. “Your wife is
waiting for you. Miriam.”

“Miriam?” He looked up. “Where?”

“We're going to see her.” Jenny held out one
gloved hand. “Right now. But we have to hurry.”

“Miriam,” he whispered. He took her hand, and
Jenny helped him stand again.